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| US Holocaust Museum exhibition examines America's response to nazism abroad | US Holocaust Museum exhibition examines America's response to nazism abroad |
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| What did they know and when did they know it? And why didn’t they do more to stop it? | What did they know and when did they know it? And why didn’t they do more to stop it? |
| The motives, pressures and fears that shaped America’s response to the murder of 6 million Jews in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s are the subject of a provocative new exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. | The motives, pressures and fears that shaped America’s response to the murder of 6 million Jews in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s are the subject of a provocative new exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. |
| Americans and the Holocaust debunks the myth that Americans lacked access to information about the persecution of Jews as it was happening, demonstrates that they had little appetite to take in refugees from Europe and illustrates that President Franklin Roosevelt’s primary focus was on winning a war, not ending a genocide. | Americans and the Holocaust debunks the myth that Americans lacked access to information about the persecution of Jews as it was happening, demonstrates that they had little appetite to take in refugees from Europe and illustrates that President Franklin Roosevelt’s primary focus was on winning a war, not ending a genocide. |
| “We show how Americans’ isolationism after world war one, our own xenophobia, racism and antisemitism, and then the catastrophe of the Great Depression, an economic crisis, shape Americans’ responses to nazism,” said exhibition curator Daniel Greene. “Americans had a lot of information about the threat of nazism in real time including, after 1942, murder of Jews across Europe, and we want visitors to ask why rescue of Jews didn’t become a priority.” | “We show how Americans’ isolationism after world war one, our own xenophobia, racism and antisemitism, and then the catastrophe of the Great Depression, an economic crisis, shape Americans’ responses to nazism,” said exhibition curator Daniel Greene. “Americans had a lot of information about the threat of nazism in real time including, after 1942, murder of Jews across Europe, and we want visitors to ask why rescue of Jews didn’t become a priority.” |
| The warning signs were there. In the 1930s, the exhibition recounts, popular US news magazines reported almost weekly on Hitler and Nazi Germany, including the targeting of Jews, communists and other political opponents. One striking display includes Time magazine covers featuring Hitler and propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, a Newsweek cover dominated by Hitler at a Nazi rally and a Vanity Fair cover with a caricature of Hitler superimposed on a giant swastika. | The warning signs were there. In the 1930s, the exhibition recounts, popular US news magazines reported almost weekly on Hitler and Nazi Germany, including the targeting of Jews, communists and other political opponents. One striking display includes Time magazine covers featuring Hitler and propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, a Newsweek cover dominated by Hitler at a Nazi rally and a Vanity Fair cover with a caricature of Hitler superimposed on a giant swastika. |
| No less fascinating is a Cosmopolitan magazine from March 1932 in which American journalist Dorothy Thompson interviews Hitler. The article begins: “When I walked into Adolf Hitler’s salon, I was convinced that I was meeting the future dictator of Germany. In less than 50 seconds I was sure I was not. It took just that time to measure the startling insignificance of this man who has set the world agog.” | No less fascinating is a Cosmopolitan magazine from March 1932 in which American journalist Dorothy Thompson interviews Hitler. The article begins: “When I walked into Adolf Hitler’s salon, I was convinced that I was meeting the future dictator of Germany. In less than 50 seconds I was sure I was not. It took just that time to measure the startling insignificance of this man who has set the world agog.” |
| But Thompson also observed: “Antisemitism is the life and soul of Hitler’s movement. The Nazis lose no opportunity to insult the Jews.” | But Thompson also observed: “Antisemitism is the life and soul of Hitler’s movement. The Nazis lose no opportunity to insult the Jews.” |
| A digital touchscreen display of a US map allows visitors to tap any state and see how regional newspapers of the time were also sounding the alarm. On 29 March 1933, for example, the Dallas Morning News carried a front page headline: “Nazi Chiefs Order Jewish Boycott; Even School Children Are Included.” | A digital touchscreen display of a US map allows visitors to tap any state and see how regional newspapers of the time were also sounding the alarm. On 29 March 1933, for example, the Dallas Morning News carried a front page headline: “Nazi Chiefs Order Jewish Boycott; Even School Children Are Included.” |
| Greene said: “The media landscape of the 1930s and 40s includes newspapers, magazines, newsreels, radio, and right across all this media we see that Americans could have had access to information about the threat of Nazis if they were paying close attention. One of the things we really want people to understand is it’s not a story that you only had if you were on the coast or in a big metropolitan city. Across the country Americans could read about the threat of nazism.” | Greene said: “The media landscape of the 1930s and 40s includes newspapers, magazines, newsreels, radio, and right across all this media we see that Americans could have had access to information about the threat of Nazis if they were paying close attention. One of the things we really want people to understand is it’s not a story that you only had if you were on the coast or in a big metropolitan city. Across the country Americans could read about the threat of nazism.” |
| In the spring of 1933, the exhibition records, tens of thousands of Americans signed petitions protesting the Nazis’ treatment of Jews, but the US made no official statement against the German regime. In June that year, Roosevelt said: “The German authorities are treating the Jews shamefully and the Jews in this country are greatly excited. But this is also not a government affair.” | In the spring of 1933, the exhibition records, tens of thousands of Americans signed petitions protesting the Nazis’ treatment of Jews, but the US made no official statement against the German regime. In June that year, Roosevelt said: “The German authorities are treating the Jews shamefully and the Jews in this country are greatly excited. But this is also not a government affair.” |
| In 1938 Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, which saw coordinated attacks on thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany, made banner headlines on front pages from Atlanta to Philadelphia to San Francisco. Roosevelt, who told a press conference that it had “deeply shocked” the American public, was asked by a reporter: “Would you recommend a relaxation of our immigration restrictions so that Jewish refugees could be received in this country?” The president replied: “This is not in contemplation; we have the quota system.” | In 1938 Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, which saw coordinated attacks on thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany, made banner headlines on front pages from Atlanta to Philadelphia to San Francisco. Roosevelt, who told a press conference that it had “deeply shocked” the American public, was asked by a reporter: “Would you recommend a relaxation of our immigration restrictions so that Jewish refugees could be received in this country?” The president replied: “This is not in contemplation; we have the quota system.” |
| Roosevelt’s legacy in relation to refugees has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, but the exhibition is even-handed. Greene said: “One of the things I’ve thought about here is when does a president try to lead public opinion and when does he follow it. So public opinion is against entering into the war but Roosevelt tries to lead it towards intervention. Public opinion is very much against letting in refugees and he decides that’s not what he’s going to spend his political capital on. | Roosevelt’s legacy in relation to refugees has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, but the exhibition is even-handed. Greene said: “One of the things I’ve thought about here is when does a president try to lead public opinion and when does he follow it. So public opinion is against entering into the war but Roosevelt tries to lead it towards intervention. Public opinion is very much against letting in refugees and he decides that’s not what he’s going to spend his political capital on. |
| “Roosevelt is a political animal and he’s always making decisions based on politics. Part of politics is thinking about popularity and what do the American people think, and the American people at this time are clear about what they think about admitting refugees.” | “Roosevelt is a political animal and he’s always making decisions based on politics. Part of politics is thinking about popularity and what do the American people think, and the American people at this time are clear about what they think about admitting refugees.” |
| Opinion polls several weeks after Kristallnacht found that 94% of Americans disapproved of the Nazi treatment of Jews, but 71% did not want more Jewish refugees to come to the US. | Opinion polls several weeks after Kristallnacht found that 94% of Americans disapproved of the Nazi treatment of Jews, but 71% did not want more Jewish refugees to come to the US. |
| Americans and the Holocaust has stories of heroic individuals who went against the grain to rescue Jews from Europe, but also of Yale University students who founded the America First Committee to oppose US intervention in the second world war. They won the support of aviator Charles Lindbergh, who in a speech in Iowa in 1941 accused Jews of being “war agitators”. Lindbergh’s 1941 diary and an insignia given to him on Hitler’s behalf for services to world aviation are on display. | Americans and the Holocaust has stories of heroic individuals who went against the grain to rescue Jews from Europe, but also of Yale University students who founded the America First Committee to oppose US intervention in the second world war. They won the support of aviator Charles Lindbergh, who in a speech in Iowa in 1941 accused Jews of being “war agitators”. Lindbergh’s 1941 diary and an insignia given to him on Hitler’s behalf for services to world aviation are on display. |
| America entered the war and Hollywood got on board. But popular films of the era emphasised the fight for democracy rather than nazism’s victims. Even Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, depicted stranded refugees without mentioning Jews explicitly, though director Michael Curtiz and several supporting players were Jewish. An exception was The Great Dictator with Charlie Chaplin, one of whose costumes is on show. | America entered the war and Hollywood got on board. But popular films of the era emphasised the fight for democracy rather than nazism’s victims. Even Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, depicted stranded refugees without mentioning Jews explicitly, though director Michael Curtiz and several supporting players were Jewish. An exception was The Great Dictator with Charlie Chaplin, one of whose costumes is on show. |
| The killing continued on an industrial scale and by December 1942, radio broadcaster Edward Murrow was clear: “What is happening is this: millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered.” But the US government’s priority was the defeat of nazism. It rejected pleas to bomb rail lines that transported Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau, its gas chambers or the entire camp as “impracticable” and a “diversion” from winning the war. | The killing continued on an industrial scale and by December 1942, radio broadcaster Edward Murrow was clear: “What is happening is this: millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered.” But the US government’s priority was the defeat of nazism. It rejected pleas to bomb rail lines that transported Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau, its gas chambers or the entire camp as “impracticable” and a “diversion” from winning the war. |
| By 1945, as the Nazis collapsed, American magazines ran some of the first widely circulated photographs from concentration camps. On 7 May, Life stated: “For 12 years since the Nazis seized power, Americans have heard charges of German brutality … Last week Americans could no longer doubt stories of Nazi cruelty. For the first time there was irrefutable evidence.” | By 1945, as the Nazis collapsed, American magazines ran some of the first widely circulated photographs from concentration camps. On 7 May, Life stated: “For 12 years since the Nazis seized power, Americans have heard charges of German brutality … Last week Americans could no longer doubt stories of Nazi cruelty. For the first time there was irrefutable evidence.” |
| US Holocaust Museum withdraws Aung San Suu Kyi's human rights award | US Holocaust Museum withdraws Aung San Suu Kyi's human rights award |
| Greene said: “What you’re seeing in a lot of the media in the 30s and 40s is information, but words. It’s really April and May 1945 that you start to see, in our mass media, visual evidence of the atrocities. And it does make me wonder if, in the 1940s, we can say seeing is believing and so Americans have of a lot of information but they don’t fully believe.” | Greene said: “What you’re seeing in a lot of the media in the 30s and 40s is information, but words. It’s really April and May 1945 that you start to see, in our mass media, visual evidence of the atrocities. And it does make me wonder if, in the 1940s, we can say seeing is believing and so Americans have of a lot of information but they don’t fully believe.” |
| Even then, the needle barely moved. In a December 1945 poll, 69% of people said the US should admit the same or fewer people from Europe each year than it did before the war. Only 5% said it should admit more. | Even then, the needle barely moved. In a December 1945 poll, 69% of people said the US should admit the same or fewer people from Europe each year than it did before the war. Only 5% said it should admit more. |
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